Thursday, January 29, 2009

On Our Fifteenth Anniversary

On a wintry and romantic day fifteen years ago, January 29th 1994, Cheryl and I married and committed our lives to each other and to God and placed a ring on each other’s fingers.

It is together that we have taken on this rewarding challenge of life, dedicated through sickness and health, better and worse, times good and bad, and we have managed with some success to meet this challenge. While we are all individuals, it is in recognizing that the husband and wife together, a new creation, takes precedence, that the individual melts away and transforms.

Cheryl and I have been together more than half of our lives. She is my spouse and my love, the mother of our five- soon to be six- children; she is a teacher; she loves, she gives; she is stubborn yet wise; she is dedicated to her mission of bringing her family towards heaven; she is considerate, passionate, patient and impatient; she is frustrating and yet enlightening; she is Irish and Italian; she is set in her ways and yet seeks new paths; she knows what she won’t do and damn well knows what she will.

She and I are how we have chosen to live our lives together and do our best to honor our pledge and dedication to each other: Wherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder. Matthew 19:6

Those rings have not been off our fingers since that day and it is not our intention to ever remove them. We have learned in the last fifteen years that Life is more precious than the world we live in can comprehend; that being open to children is not governed by your financial status or vice versa; and that a big noisy house full of children is much like a small noisy house full of children. It’s noisy. It is full of both joy and strife, order and mess, myrth and mischief, silences of anger and and love, late bed times and early mornings, sick children and barking dogs.

Our path is different than most, but we can’t imagine another. We will continue down our path together until one of us must find their way alone, supported by family, until we see each other again.

I love you Cheryl. Thank you for sharing this journey as we are Mr. and Mrs. Ruffing